Honduran Reef Island Shoreline Change and Planform Evolution over the Last 15 Years: Implications for Reef Island Monitoring and Futures
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this study, shoreline change analysis of reef islands in northern Honduras, at the southern end of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef is presented. As compared to reef islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, there have been rather limited investigations from Caribbean area where sea-level rise, ecological and environmental disturbance and hydrodynamic regimes are considerably different than in other oceans globally. This paper contains highly interesting results and has practical importance. The paper can be published after minor revisions as listed below.
1. In this study, tidal correction has never been made in the satellite image analysis. At least there must be explanation for the possible error induced by tidal variation effect, which can be estimated from the tidal range and beach slope.
2. P.20 Sea-level rise: The description in this section contains almost no results. Thus, the reviewer suggests the authors to remove this portion.
3. “Rotation” in Table 6 and Figure 4: In Fig.4 in Ref 26, the “rotational” behavior is very clear for the overall island in clockwise or anti-clockwise direction. However, as compared to such a typical rotational behavior in Ref 26, the rotational characteristic in U7 and C2 cannot be called “rotation.”
Reference 26) Kench, P.S.; Chan, J.; Owen, S.D.; McLean, R.F. The Geomorphology, Development and Temporal Dynamics of Tepuka Island, Funafuti Atoll, Tuvalu. Geomorphology 2014, 46–58.
4. Not only detecting the shoreline change, but also analyzing the location of vegetation edge will be highly useful for discussing the reef morphology change.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Please see attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Minor editing of English language required in order to "polish" the manuscript.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Having read the revised manuscript and the authors’ response, I believe that the authors did put an honest and meticulous effort into addressing the issues raised in my first review, which have led to a “stronger” submission overall. My recommendation is to accept the manuscript for publication in Remote Sensing.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your generous comments. We are thrilled that you thought we had revised the paper appropriately, and thank you for your recommendation of publication. Many thanks.
